Webster-Stoppel Family: NYCD1

Greetings from the Big Apple! For those of you who don't know (and that's got to be a small number since I'm pretty sure we told about anyone who'd listen), Jon and I are in New York to attend the wedding of a good college friend of mine, so we thought we'd do a day-by-day blog of what we're getting up to in the city that never sleeps.

Our flight left at 7 a.m. yesterday morning, so we were up at 4:45 a.m. (actually, I was up at 3:45 a.m. because my secret inner eight-year-old was too excited to sleep) showering, feeding the cats, last minute packing, and main-lining coffee. Flight (Midwest) went off without a hitch, and we arrived at our hotel around 11:15 a.m. We're staying at the Hotel Roger Williams, a little boutique joint near enough to the wedding site to make a short cab ride. (Jon wanted to walk, but I showed him my heels and asked how many blocks he thought he could carry me.) I'll talk more about our accomodations in a later post.

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we walked over to Bryant Park, where the wedding will be held, then made a brief impromtu stop at the Walgreens in Times Square for an umbrella. After that, we stopped at Heartland Brewery for a pick-me-up beer for Jon, who was feeling a wee bit grumpy after his unexpected second shower (little did he know what was to come).

I think most of you know that Jon and I are sort of wanna-be-foodies. I will never truly be considered a foodie, simply because I won't eat fois gras and veal on principle, and I don't like fat or skin or any of the supposedly tasty stuff on my meat, but we do like good food. We're fanatical Top Chef and Top Chef Masters viewers, and when we found out we were going to be in town during NYC's Restaurant Week, we felt we must partake, at least a couple of times. Having established this, we made lunch reservations at Chef Marcus Samuelson's Aquavit restaurant. The food was very good and very interesting as well, with both of us getting to try a few things we don't normally eat (cold fish for one, and I don't mean smoked fish, just served cold). The meal was still pretty pricey, once you added in drinks and coffee, but it's one of those things that I think you have to do when you're here: Eat a really good meal and a well respected restaurant, and Restaurant Week allows you to do that without spending nearly as much as you would otherwise.

Following this, we checked into the hotel and changed for an audio tour of Central Park and the Yankees/Royals game. I should say that while it had been raining earlier, it was not raining by this point. In fact, the sun was out. In fact the sun was out and the humidity was rising. In fact, the sun was out, the humidity was rising, and the air was not moving, not even a little bit. It was awful outside, and the subway platforms were even worse. However, under the very determined leadership of Jon, we perservered and made it to Central Park to start our audio tour. Sadly, there was some argument as to whether that building was (me) or was not (Jon) Tavern on the Green (it was), and we spent a large portion of the time allotted back tracking, trying to find stuff. I think we're going to try again on Sunday morning.

Sweaty and a little grumpy now, we (under the leadership of Captain Jon) walked 20 blocks or so to a gelato place , then spent about 15 minutes (Jon's edit: Alaina embelishes) trying to find the subway, so we could get over to the Bronx for the game. Once we got there, we had to fight the crowds--including one of New York's finest, who took one look at Jon in his Royals' jersey and took to his megaphone to tell him to get back on the train and go back to where he came from--and a fiesty ticket agent who was quite sharp with me for not having my ID out, even though there were no signs indicating I would need my ID to pick up tickets at will call. Whatever...

Anyway, we watch the first 4.5 innings of the game, and then it starts to rain. We were up under the awning, so at first we were just getting hit by the occasional sprinkle. Then it was really raining. Then...it was cloudbursting. Seriously. The rain moved to torrential downpour territory, and the wind was blowing so hard that even standing against the back wall of Yankee Stadium, it felt like you were getting hit by a sprinkler. Everyone was soaked. They finally resumed the game about 9:30 p.m., so we stayed until the beginning of the eighth inning and then called it quits. After the rather crowded and lengthy subway ride back to our area of town, we grabbed some take-out from a little 24 hour Korean place, ate it on our bed, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Today's Agenda: